Vote Zombie in '08

Black Devil Disco Club / Unit 4 - An Other Skin (Days of Blacula)
Patrick Pulsinger & DJ Glow - Plowing the Dark
Shifted Phases - The Freak Show
Le Syndicat Electronique - La Frequence Morte
Lady Sovereign vs. Ministry - Love Me Or Hate Me Everyday
Ultradyne - Clones (Z Therapy Mix)
The Black Ghosts - Face (Switch Mix)
Hiem - Zombie Party

Relive Halloween '06 here. Boo!

Well, the Orange Box came out last week to much rejoicing for us gaming droids...Not only does this mammoth compilation contain the award-winning and utterly great Half Life 2, but also Half Life 2: Episode 2, Portal, and the long-awaited (i.e. since 2000) Team Fortress 2...a ridiculous crazy ludicrous bargain at $49.95...

While Half Life is something that needs to be seen (or experienced) to be believed, and Team Fortress 2 is currently the best team-based shooter on the PC, bar none, the cute and crazy surprise comes in the form of Portal. A simple enough premise: you, a maze of laboratory corridors, and a gun that makes dimensional portals, anywhere you want. Add in a psychotic, but cute-sounding artificial intelligence, rocket turrets, and of course, moist delicious cake, and you've got a helluva game.

And a cool as hell song, too. Click here to download "Still Alive", the thoroughly catchy endgame song from Portal, sung by everyone's favorite AI antagonist, GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System)...written by a real cool cat named Jonathan Coulton...and since dr™ wouldn't be happy if this post didn't include a cover tune, listen to Mr. Coulton's wonderfully white-ified cover of Sir Mix-a-Lot's Baby Got Back here.

Henceforth,

Time for another post of retro covers of choons from that oh-so-glorious decade, thee 80z. The long-awaited second installment of RobotSound™s I <3 the 80s has arrived [for Vol.1, click here]. So bust out your best modern romantic get-up and dance to some 21st century re-imaginings of these Alternative (back when that actually meant something) Rock hits.

Chromatics - Running Up That Hill [Demo]
Enjoy this Kate Bush classic, then pick up the Chromatics Shining Violence 12" out on Italians Do It Better. Better yet, get the After Dark comp.

Scratch Massive - Three Imaginary Boys
These sexy Parisians just did a soundtrack album which has their cover of Marianne Faithful's Broken English. Here they re-interpret an early Cure track. Massive!

Travelogue - Europa
Travelogue [aka Jon Sonnenberg] has carried forth the synthpop torch from pioneers like Thomas Dolby. Don't be one of the "pirate twins" Dolby sings of -pick up some of Travelogue's releases here.

Dirty Sanchez - U Got The Look
Who better than Dirty Sanchez to cover the artist currently known as Prince's duet with Sheena E (who used to shill for the gym I belong to). Take a look at a recent video they made for their ode to the kids in Saigon and the punks in Taiwan, Youth In Asia.

lb - Be Near Me [Backup Read Error]
The last release Atom™ made as Lassigue Bendthaus was 1998's Pop Artificielle LP, featuring this ABC synthpop anthem, as well as songs from David Bowie, John Lennon, and The Stones. What's your reputation?

CMYK - Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?
I usually don't post two tracks from the same artist in one post, but given that he's mr. prolific (and he's done his fair share of covers), I couldn't resist including Atom™s Senor Coconut-esque vibraphone rendition of this time-honored Culture Club number. Yes, George, I REALLY WANT TO HURT YOU! j/k

Think of this as a rerun. But this time, there are songs to go along with the post [the songs on the original post ended up getting lost in a site transfer].

No, this isn't the Ubercoolische Minimal Techno we're talking about here - I'm not going to bore you again with that subject. This is Minimal Wave, a term that encompasses early 80's electronic music that heavily emphasized raw analog synths and rhythm boxes. Genres include electro, obscure new wave, minimal synth, coldwave, darkwave and new romantic. Over the last few years there has been some renewed interest in Minimal Wave as today's sonic technicians look to the past for inspiration. The artists on the sadly now-defunct Invasion Planete conspired to supply the underground with very limited minimal wave releases along with a dose of propaganda. In 2003, Gigolo Records came out with New Deutsch, a long overdue compilation that unearthed some lost but not entirely forgotten gems from the German scene. More recently, Vitalic and David Carretta remixed the club favorite Cardboard Lamb from the underrated but highly influential Crash Course In Science, who are currently at work on a new LP.

The Actor - Covergirl
Experimental Products - Clear Images
Guyer's Connection - Dallas
Informatics - Factory Nightlife 03
Profil - 1964 [I think Juice Newton stole this for Queen of Hearts]
Transparent Illusion - We
Silicon Teens - Sun Flight
A Blaze Color - A Means To An End [Sounds like G.D. Luxxe got his vocal style from this guy]
G.K. Agenda - Enyhόles
Nine Circles - Twinkling Stars

Everyone wishes they could have an ASIMO or a PaPeRo robot, right? But what about those of us who don't live in Japan or aren't Daddy Warbucks?

The future is now!

The French company Violet has released v.2 of their clever Wi-Fi bunny "Nabaztag" (= rabbit in Armenian), which sells for under $200.

Here's what he can do:
E-mail alerts, talking clock, weather, vocal reading of internet RSS feeds/written messages, reception of spoken messages or musical greetings sent via the internet, communication through colored lights and ear movements, and coming soon: object and person recognition. Friends can send you messages through the main website even if they don't have their own bionic bunny.

Personally, here is what I enjoy most:
+ the subculture of the Nabaztag worldwide community: User profiles, pics of dressed-up rabbits, meet-ups, etc. There's even a Google Earth NabazWorld community where you can see all the Nabaztags as white rabbit icons across the globe. France is especially full of them!
+ the robotic motion of the magnetized (and customizable) ears is fully choreographed and beautifully smooth (like ASIMO).
+ the open API means that new applications can be written by the user community.
+ the ability to receive podcasts and "Nabcasts" from different users. My radio station of cute Toytronic-style IDM is called Electronic.Leporidae

My only complaints are:
- the tracks you upload get clipped to under a minute (well-suited for those brief Skanfrom, Plaid, and "micromusic" tracks, but not so good for anything longer).
- the spoken voices (in UK or US English, French, German, with more to come) attempt to be too "human" and realistic, which can be frustrating for those of us who like our robots to sound like robots (though they still have a decent "SimpleTalk" vibe, and the whole Kraftwerk-esque idea of a multi-lingual robot is pretty irresistible).
- there are still a few bugs, but there are forums for discussing them.

So, fellow robots, it's time to welcome this new species of cute robotic rabbit into our dwelling-units. If you want to say hello to mine, his name is "Duplo"...

Pardon the last few days' downtime - my database became corrupted (probably due to the work of some dastardly ninjas or pirates), frustrating this technology-challenged droid and leaving you guys without the updates you crave. Not exactly sure how this happened, but we'll be upgrading this weekend, eliminating problems such as these. The future of Robotsound™ will once again be secure.

Speaking of the future, it's clear that the music industry is heading in an increasingly digital direction. With the rise of the mp3 and the ubiquitousness of the iPod, CDs and eventually DVDs will go the way of the cassette/8-track. While there will always be an ever-shrinking niche audience of vinyl-whores like myself, nearly all other music junkies will be getting their fixes mainlined digitally to their drives. One type of dealer who supplies them is known as the netlabel, who have been quietly surfacing in recent years, consistently improving the quality of their product. Here's a small sample bag so you can acquaint yourself with some of these audio pushers. Midi junkies, gonna fuck you up!

Sweet Smelling Surfaces
Run by a crazy, French, noodle fetishist aka Tampopo (and his bad lieutenant Supakaji), this netlabel boasts releases from Plastique de Reve, Linda Lamb, Scape One and a host of artists you've never heard of. The sssounds on this label are not confined to any one musical genre, so prepare to discover the unexpected.
Micromusic
While the bleeps and blips might be small, the idea behind the micromusic community is quite macro. Microeventz occur 'round the globe (540 eventz in the last 7 years!) as much music (be it worky, fucky, sporty, spooky, lovely, funky and/or relaxy) gets uploaded and sucked down daily from micromusic hq.
8 bit peoples
For eight years this collective has expressed their love/obsession of video games in their approach to music. Here too you will find plenty in the way of hi-energy/lo-bit fun; Visiting this site is akin to chancing upon an arcade with all of your favorite quarter-munching machines, plus they're all set to unlimited credits. 1up!

Stay current on the burgeoning netlabel phenom:
Sonic Squirrel
Bleepwatch